To Have or Not to Have THE BOOK PARTY?

 

I see this question on writers group chats. Should I have a book launch party? Where? How? Is it a must?

 

I really like this post by Liz Alterman. It tells of her personal experience of this very matter.

 

Let’s face it: unless you have written on a very hot topic and are a known expert on same, or you are already an established author for fiction, your book event will not draw a crowd of strangers. Your audience will be largely made of supportive friends who want to celebrate with you, a very nice thing. This, too, makes a book feel “launched.”

 

 

But there will be a few new faces, and each is a possible future friend. This, at least, has been my experience.

If the very idea of throwing a party where no one comes gives you night sweats, know that you don’t have to have book events. Many writers are not natural partiers. It’s okay either way.

 

Speaking for myself, I hope to have more books published. Parties will depend on what/where/when. I did like my previous events after I had done them and saw, as the book of Genesis says, that it was good.

NO SECOND CHANCE~~~

 

An agent recently published a post where agent explained that she & other publishing professionals can assess a query in fifteen seconds or less.

There’s the easy “not what I work with,” the almost as easy “this reads badly,” and the less clear “not what I’m looking for right now.”

 

It sounds both arrogant and presumptuous, but it is a necessity when hundreds of queries pour in day after day.

 

I just read another post about how one’s website’s Homepage is likely the only one most visitors would glance at, and (gulp) on average, for less than a minute. That post is linked here.

 

It’s hard to think that other pages’ content you thoughtfully aggregated, mulled over, culled and refined— will remain largely unseen.

 

These are the facts. A home page is the front yard, and the way a few will choose to knock on the door and come inside.

 

My first publisher, a small house that published my picture book and had since closed, offered to make a website for me. That seemed a nice bonus. No effort to learn the ways of website hosting and design, the thought of which was intimidating. I liked their website for them, but their designer (who had designed their other authors’ sites) felt wrong for me. It was busy. It was jazzy. It was hip-hip-hoorah and kinetic to the point where one might worry about inducing seizures in susceptible individuals. 

All right, a slight exaggeration, with slight being the operative word.

 

That wasn’t going to be my calling card, which is what websites and especially their home pages serve as today.

 

So, I said, “thank you, but I’ll do my own”— and braved the choppy waters of the interwebs.

 

In addition to the good but general advice in the linked post, I would add that your home page has to feel right for you.

WRITING UNDER A PSEUDONYM

 

For reasons I can only describe as ignorance of consequences, lack of vision, lack of understanding how publishing works, and a touch of ego, I never considered a pseudonym when I first sought publication.

It seemed a needless complication, because one’s legal name is straightforward and pseudonyms suggest expectation of an illustrious publishing career. In addition, a pseudonym says you are hiding, which means you have something to hide.

 

I now wish I knew more back then. Pseudonyms are more than a form of protection, (because most who write never get the harsh bright lights of mass recognition anyway) they are distinct public personas and thus “brands” of sorts, and many find this very helpful creatively.

 

A pseudonym is employed when writers write in divergent and incompatible genres. Think kidlit and erotica, or kidlit and politics, or kidlit and most genres not kidlit.

 

A few years ago, I met a much-published writer who wrote in three distinctive genres. She used one pseudonym for her mysteries, another for her erotica, and her legal name for literary novels. She is by no means a household name in any of her three author identities. But she did admit her strongest income stream was from her erotica writing. No surprise there.

 

She said the different names helped her stay creative and focused. I understand, and no longer find this practice a wee creepy, like I used to.

 

Add to this consideration the matter of privacy, barely possible at the age where the Interwebs give your home address to anyone who will pay a few dollars, (and even free) as another name has a layer of security, albeit a thin one.

 

I never considered it, and even my social media presence (such as it is) is all-public. Easy, as I’m not famous. But if you are just starting out and foresee seeking mass recognition, think about it and see if a pseudonym will make you creatively better focused and feeling more secure. If you choose to go that way, have fun with the choice of pseudonym because having fun on this journey is what will keep you going.

TO BE OR NOT— PROFESSIONAL YOU

Most writers I have known, or read interviews with, would rather keep their private lives private. Publishing, i.e. making public, is for the work, not their bios or beeswax.

But today’s publishing demands some personal exposure. It’s a weird and uncomfortable transition, and in the process, some get confused as to how personal to be in the virtual social space.

To the rescue comes a polished and experienced professional, literary agent Janet Reid. See her blog post here, about how to (and mostly how NOT to) present oneself as you head to the field of publishing.

It’s solid advice from one who knows. Not arguing, and also breathing a sigh of relief that I have nothing in my digital past that needs fixing. (Actually, almost nothing, but I’ll leave it there.)

However, I have one more to add to this list of please-don’t-do-that, and it’s a personal one that has bothered me for years, mostly because it is so ubiquitous on writers’ sites.

It’s the tendency to hide in plain sight.

I took care to include in my About Me/bio all true things that are germane and pertinent to why I do what I do. I omitted plenty that I don’t want to share and don’t think has relevance to my writing life. But even as I use some humor, I wrote central and deep truths.

I understand how some do not want to say anything that goes beneath the surface. Thus, we get “fun facts” such as “I like green jelly beans, have a fear of spiders, and once climbed a mountain with a plate on my head.”

And that's pretty much all they say.

This sort of disclosure is not much fun, and serves to masquerade as personal sharing while hiding.

Maybe having a factual bio would be better. It’s not humorous, but I’ll get to know you just a wee bit. Janet Reid mentions that you should have a photo of yourself, not of a typewriter. I think a bio should also expose something.

Just my take on this tricky road. I know it isn’t easy.